Video of the Day: Woz on How Apple Computers Got Color

Nicole Martinelli ()

Steve Wozniak recounts a nice bit of Silicon Valley folk lore in this excerpt from the Discovery Forum interview where he talks about how he got the idea of bringing color to the Mac after staying up four nights in a row to meet a deadline for Atari.

Wish sleepless nights brought me that kind of inspiration…

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About the author

nicole_martinelli

Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

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Posted in Cult of Mac, Vintage Tech, Woz |

  • Matt

    Woz is referring to the Apple ][ computer, not the Macintosh.

  • http://www.zoomata.com Nicole Martinelli

    Right. Sorted. Tx

  • http://deoclicianocgiportfolio.wordpress.com Deocliciano Okssipin Vieira

    So  never invented anything?

  • http://www.emwave.com Harald Striepe

    This was also called artifacting. Also used by certain developers on Atari 800 for the hi res mode, which was meant to be monochrome.

  • John Sawyer

    I love this story, including the other details Woz has described at other times about the color circuits he developed.

    Woz also has a similar story describing his development of the Apple II’s floppy disk controller board–how he figured out how to reduce the number of chips onto a little board about the size of a playing card. Nobody had done that before.

    On Woz’s website, he has a nice description of his overall mindset while developing the Apple II’s circuitry–he describes being able to see how all his knowledge about circuitry could fit together in new, elegant ways, so that he realized he really knew what he was doing.

  • Anthony Spivey

    “Right. Sorted. Tx”

    That’s it? I don’t want to be a jerk about this, but the text of your article still indicates Woz is talking about the Mac… he is not.

    A lot of us were introduced to computers with groundbreaking machines such as the Apple ][, Commodore Pet, Tandy CoCo, and Atari 800. Please correct the article. You are doing a disservice to the genius of Woz and the other greats of that time by indicating all of this was a lead in to the Mac.

    These were phenomenal machines designed by phenomenal engineers, and they deserve to be recognized as such – not just as an evolutionary step toward the Mac.

  • japanguy

    that is actor charles bronson. he gained some pounds?

  • Mr. Code E

    I stayed up for 7 nights in a row and all I came up with is poorly constructed makeshift fort to keep the shadow people out….